Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Christmas holidays

Happy New Years everyone!! Today marks the final day of my holiday vacation and I am 10 shades of blue about returning to work tomorrow. Sean and I had grand plans of traveling this holiday but both Bennett Grace and I were struck with plague so we stayed home. Being home, just the three of us for the past two weeks has been amazing. We have had so much fun.


So while the little one naps, let me fill you in with a little of what we have been up to....

The Saturday before Christmas my mom had us over to her house for dinner. She invited both sets of her in-laws and everyone came! We had so much fun getting everyone together.  Sunday my mom and I did some last minute shopping and errands and we visited with my cousin Elenie and her sweet baby Cooper. 

Then Monday rolled around and we were in full on Christmas mode. We do Christmas Eve with Sean’s family and Christmas day with mine.

Christmas Eve we went to Mimi and Pop’s house. We had dinner and then opened gifts with the family. We started off with our friend Brad reading the Christmas story from the Book of Luke, then we passed around The Night Before Christmas and each read a page. (We did this every year on Christmas Eve when I was little at my Mamaw and Papaw’s house and I really wanted to keep the tradition going for Bennett Grace. Thankfully there were no objections!)  We open gifts one by one in a circle from the youngest to the oldest so everyone gets to see each other’s gifts as they open them. This is a far cry from our family’s free-for-all. Bennett Grace had TONS of gifts and she enjoyed opening every last one.
Uncle Matt and Aunt Mellissa
We came home Christmas Eve, changed a very sleepy BGT into her Christmas jammies, left a plate of cookies for Santa and tucked sleeping beauty into bed.

Santa came bright and early and brought BGT a wagon full of gifts! He also thoroughly enjoyed the PB Oreos we left for him. Soon all the grandparents stopped by to see what Santa brought and to eat breakfast. Afterwards we went to Gigi and Papa D’s house to open gifts. Then finally we went over to my Grandmother and Granddaddy Jones’ house to have dinner with my mom’s entire family. We had a blast. BGT got to play with all of my cousins’ children and she loved them.

Santa came!
Stockings... I guess they were too heavy for Santa to hang
Bennett Grace and Daddy are looking a little tired
We spent the day after Christmas organizing and playing with all BGT’s new toys. We actually had to go out and buy a bigger toy box. We are so thankful to all of our friends and family for making Bennett Grace’s first Christmas so special. We are so fortunate to have such wonderful people around us. 

Of course she learns to crawl in time to get into the presents :)
We intended to travel the rest of the holiday, however with everyone sick, we ended up staying home. We spent most of the time hanging out with our munchkin and playing with all of her toys. It was wonderful. We also were privileged to get to witness and enjoy two huge milestones. The weekend before Christmas Bennett Grace started crawling. It came out of nowhere- one minute she was in the floor playing then she was crawling. Sean was sitting with her and I was on the couch and I said: SEAN! She is crawling!?!?!? And we both just watched her. Now she is in to EVERYTHING. Then on NYE she got her first tooth! Gigi was the first to see it and was so excited! We were overjoyed to get to experience these milestones.

NYE we went to lunch with Gigi and Papa D. We had planned to go out that evening but decided over lunch to spend the evening with Gigi and Papa D and our sweet munchkin. We had a great time as a family.  Then New Year’s Day we went back to my Grandmother and Granddaddy Jones’ house for lunch (collard greens and black eyed peas of course). Bennett Grace got to visit with everyone including her Aunt Mimi and Uncle Jim and she was so excited. 

Here are a couple more, oh who am I kidding, a ton more pictures from our holidays! Now my munchkin is up so I’m going to go and try to steal as much of her sugar as I can before I return to work tomorrow.

Uncle Ryan with a dramatic reading
A little sleepy but excited about all of her gifts!
You mean all these are mine??
Yay!
I could have eaten her up she was so smoochy
Playing with the stuff from mommy's stocking
With cousins Cameron and Sara Bentlee
Already thick as thieves. Man are we in trouble.
Mommy! Stop taking my pictures and let me play!
Excited!
The fam on Christmas. THE ONLY FAMILY PICTURE WE TOOK :(
Jones Family Christmas
Can we open it now?
Katy, Cooper and Aunt Louise. Bennett Grace is like "can I touch him?"
"He's real!"
"AHHHHHA!"
So excited! They are going to be besties.

So tired. Aunt Lauren will love on me.
Katy, Aunt Morgan, El and Coop
Oh just walkin'

1 comment:

  1. merry christmas!!!!! our girls had some of the same christmas outfits! :) she is getting so big! how does she like that walker toy? i was thinking about getting E one! i hope you guys have a blessed new year!

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